Sarah Paulson has called the backlash to her role as Linda Tripp in American Crime Story "hurtful and so wrong".
While speaking at The Wrap's 2021 Power Women's Summit, the 46-year-old actress was asked about the backlash to her casting as civil servant Tripp, which required her to gain weight and wear a fat suit, in Impeachment: American Crime Story.
The actress defended her decision to take the part, characterising the critique as "particularly gender-specific."
"It did hurt my feelings, partly because it felt, as often happens when you're criticised for your work, or when you're celebrated too... it's very hard not to personalise. It's very hard to not want to say, 'Don't you know I just spent two years of my life and then I gained 30 pounds to play this part?' And that I like, slept, breathed, wept, bled Linda Tripp for two years?" Paulson said.
"So for you to sit down at your computer and decide that maybe this endeavour was not worthwhile, and that maybe I shouldn't have been the one to play it, is so hurtful and also wrong," she added.
The actress maintained that the role was the "acting challenge" of her life and that although the response to the show has been "all over the map", she accepts it.
"I welcome it, honestly, because it means I did my job," she concluded. "It meant the world to me to get to do it."
The miniseries tells the story of the political sex scandal involving U.S. President Bill Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky in 1998. Tripp played a prominent role in publicising the scandal.
